[perl #128874] locale gubbins produces unavoidable noise

# New Ticket Created by  Zefram 
# Please include the string:  [perl #128874]
# in the subject line of all future correspondence about this issue. 
# <URL: https://rt.perl.org/Ticket/Display.html?id=128874 >



This is a bug report for perl from zefram@fysh.org,
generated with the help of perlbug 1.40 running under perl 5.24.0.


-----------------------------------------------------------------
[Please describe your issue here]

$ LANG=wibble perl -e 'print "not using locale\n"'
perl: warning: Setting locale failed.
perl: warning: Please check that your locale settings:
        LANGUAGE = (unset),
        LC_ALL = (unset),
        LANG = "wibble"
    are supported and installed on your system.
perl: warning: Falling back to the standard locale ("C").
not using locale

The hefty warning about failing to set locale occurs during
initialisation, before a program written in Perl gets control.
The overall effect is that a program that does not use locale has its
stderr output marred by noise that is irrelevant and which it can't avoid.
Even if a program does want to use the environmental locale, it has no
chance to handle the error in its preferred way.  As far as I can see,
there is no way for the program to prevent the failing setlocale attempt,
muffle the warning, or even to detect that this has happened.

perl should not be saying anything on the program's stderr, other than
warnings about the program, over which the program has some control.
Griping about the environment settings is damaging the program's visible
behaviour, making it effectively impossible to write a non-locale program
in Perl.  And remember, locale is an opt-in system.

Depending on how important this implicit setlocale call is, perl should
either keep quiet about the failure, or treat the failure as a hard error
that prevents running the program.  The automatic message about locale
setting should not precede or otherwise mix with actual program output.

[Please do not change anything below this line]
-----------------------------------------------------------------
---
Flags:
    category=core
    severity=low
---
Site configuration information for perl 5.24.0:

Configured by zefram at Mon May  9 19:42:55 BST 2016.

Summary of my perl5 (revision 5 version 24 subversion 0) configuration:
   
  Platform:
    osname=linux, osvers=3.16.0-4-amd64, archname=x86_64-linux-thread-multi
    uname='linux barba.rous.org 3.16.0-4-amd64 #1 smp debian 3.16.7-ckt11-1+deb8u6 (2015-11-09) x86_64 gnulinux '
    config_args='-des -Dprefix=/home/zefram/usr/perl/perl_install/perl-5.24.0-i64-f52 -Duselargefiles -Dusethreads -Uafs -Ud_csh -Uusesfio -Uusenm -Duseshrplib -Dusedevel -Uversiononly -Ui_db'
    hint=recommended, useposix=true, d_sigaction=define
    useithreads=define, usemultiplicity=define
    use64bitint=define, use64bitall=define, uselongdouble=undef
    usemymalloc=n, bincompat5005=undef
  Compiler:
    cc='cc', ccflags ='-D_REENTRANT -D_GNU_SOURCE -fwrapv -fno-strict-aliasing -pipe -fstack-protector-strong -I/usr/local/include -D_LARGEFILE_SOURCE -D_FILE_OFFSET_BITS=64 -D_FORTIFY_SOURCE=2',
    optimize='-O2',
    cppflags='-D_REENTRANT -D_GNU_SOURCE -fwrapv -fno-strict-aliasing -pipe -fstack-protector-strong -I/usr/local/include'
    ccversion='', gccversion='4.9.2', gccosandvers=''
    intsize=4, longsize=8, ptrsize=8, doublesize=8, byteorder=12345678, doublekind=3
    d_longlong=define, longlongsize=8, d_longdbl=define, longdblsize=16, longdblkind=3
    ivtype='long', ivsize=8, nvtype='double', nvsize=8, Off_t='off_t', lseeksize=8
    alignbytes=8, prototype=define
  Linker and Libraries:
    ld='cc', ldflags =' -fstack-protector-strong -L/usr/local/lib'
    libpth=/usr/local/lib /usr/lib/gcc/x86_64-linux-gnu/4.9/include-fixed /usr/include/x86_64-linux-gnu /usr/lib /lib/x86_64-linux-gnu /lib/../lib /usr/lib/x86_64-linux-gnu /usr/lib/../lib /lib
    libs=-lpthread -lnsl -ldb -ldl -lm -lcrypt -lutil -lc
    perllibs=-lpthread -lnsl -ldl -lm -lcrypt -lutil -lc
    libc=libc-2.19.so, so=so, useshrplib=true, libperl=libperl.so
    gnulibc_version='2.19'
  Dynamic Linking:
    dlsrc=dl_dlopen.xs, dlext=so, d_dlsymun=undef, ccdlflags='-Wl,-E -Wl,-rpath,/home/zefram/usr/perl/perl_install/perl-5.24.0-i64-f52/lib/5.24.0/x86_64-linux-thread-multi/CORE'
    cccdlflags='-fPIC', lddlflags='-shared -O2 -L/usr/local/lib -fstack-protector-strong'


---
@INC for perl 5.24.0:
    /home/zefram/usr/perl/perl_install/perl-5.24.0-i64-f52/lib/site_perl/5.24.0/x86_64-linux-thread-multi
    /home/zefram/usr/perl/perl_install/perl-5.24.0-i64-f52/lib/site_perl/5.24.0
    /home/zefram/usr/perl/perl_install/perl-5.24.0-i64-f52/lib/5.24.0/x86_64-linux-thread-multi
    /home/zefram/usr/perl/perl_install/perl-5.24.0-i64-f52/lib/5.24.0
    .

---
Environment for perl 5.24.0:
    HOME=/home/zefram
    LANG (unset)
    LANGUAGE (unset)
    LD_LIBRARY_PATH (unset)
    LOGDIR (unset)
    PATH=/home/zefram/usr/perl/perl_install/perl-5.24.0-i64-f52/bin:/home/zefram/usr/perl/util:/home/zefram/pub/x86_64-unknown-linux-gnu/bin:/home/zefram/pub/common/bin:/usr/bin:/bin:/usr/local/bin:/usr/games
    PERL_BADLANG (unset)
    SHELL=/usr/bin/zsh

• [perl #128874] locale gubbins produces unavoidable noise by Zefram
• Re: [perl #128874] locale gubbins produces unavoidable noise by Karl Williamson
• Re: [perl #128874] locale gubbins produces unavoidable noise by Zefram